Prison Beauty Secrets for Paris

June 11, 2007

By CHRIS FRANCESCANI

Female inmates in Florida have some interesting grooming advice for Paris Hilton — when it comes to behind-bars beauty, a pack of Skittles, Crystal Light and instant coffee can go a long way if you want to feel pretty in prison.

They even have a name for this improvised, MacGyver-style makeup: "fake-up.''

"You know, she just always has her makeup and hair done, all the necessities, like facials and spas," Charlotte County Jail inmate Traci Mace told the Charlotte Sun newspaper this weekend, predicting that Hilton "wouldn't survive in here at all."

"We get some hair grease stuff and put it on our lips," Mace said. "The ink pens that I have, we use as the eyeliner. This is coffee, the eye shadow," she said as she pointed to the light shade of brown above her eye. "We use the glitter from cards, so thank goodness people send cards with glitter on them."

"Vaseline for my lips and a little bit of coffee and Crystal Light mixed, so it's neutral," an unidentified inmate told the paper.

Veronica Posey, another inmate in the 54-person facility, told the paper she used the powdered diet drink mix liberally.

"The lips are Crystal Light and the blush is Crystal Light," Posey said. "Basically just being here for so long you'll find a way to look pretty."

The newspaper reported Sunday that many of the makeshift beauty products could be purchased from the jail's commissary. Guards acknowledged that they stopped it when they saw it, but that "fake-up" is to some degree a part of the prison culture.

"It's something to feel more feminine because you can be pretty gross in here if women don't have their makeup," said Mace.

"I don't do it every day. I do it when I need to feel like I'm on the outside," the unidentified inmate told the newspaper.